


Fork In The Road

by yaodai



Series: Rebellious [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gen, Maul joins the rebels instead of being stabby, and things go actually worse than in canon, it's Star Wars; limbs are flying, more characters will be added as the story progress, through he's still an ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 09:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7678213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaodai/pseuds/yaodai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maul decided - or the decision was made for him - to help the Jedi on Malachor instead of making a whole new set of enemies. Now the Rebels and Maul have to face the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fork In The Road

"Rebellious"

Part One: Fork In The Road

 

By all means, Maul should've run away the moment he felt the first subtle hints in the Force that announced the presence of the Apprentice. His whole being was still protesting against running away, hiding like a rat, longing for a fight. At the same time Maul now knew better than to simply ignore his survival instincts, the only thing that did not betrayed him even once. Everything was dropping dead as the man called Vader walked and joining the crowd wasn’t the wisest of the ideas at all. Then again, Maul was not finished. The kid was going through obstacles that were supposed to be impossible to beat with ridiculous amount of ease, the vengeance was right, right there! Maul could feel the power at the tip of his fingers, he could see the slick, elegant shape of the holocron. If there even was a chance for his return, of becoming something more once again, it was that.

Then everything turned into one convoluted mass of chaos, with clouds of dirt obscuring the vision, shouts and blaster shots filling the darkness with second-short burst of reddish light. Over all that, a dark figure stood, towering over everything like an ancient god of destruction, filling the air with steady buzz of a light saber and repetitive, slow sound of breathing.   
Maul wanted to scream. He wanted to jump right there and challenge, fill the air with furious red shine of his own weapon, he wanted to hear the screams of terror and taste the fear. Instead he felt the dreaded, cold feeling of everything slipping out of his hands yet again, leaving him with nothing but his life.

Still better than nothing, a voice inside his head – his own, or belonging to someone entirely else, Maul didn’t care much – whispered. Living, living another day, living out of pure spite, always waiting, for a chance that was a whimsical mistress, coming and going as she pleased.   
Maul obediently disappeared into the shadows. He and Malachor knew each other well at this point, so it was easy, to find just the right corner, just the right spot to become invisible, while still being able to see it all.

Part of the stone ceiling above the temple was now caved in, letting the cold light from above shine upon the ancient battlefield, now partially crushed under the weight of one of the stone pillars from the surface that felt down. It was hard to see anything through the thick clouds of dust, but Maul could spot blasterfire with ease, it was a red lightning followed by growling roars of stone above that continued to break and fall.

This place had not a lot time left, he though as he noticed the all too familiar buzz of TIE-fighters flying nearby.   
It looked like Vader hadn’t come alone after all. The Jedi hurriedly ran towards their ship, serving as a very nice distraction.   
All Maul had to do was to wait a short while, so the mess could move away from him. It all worked so well. Even for the Jedi. The blasters from the ships followed them, destroying ancient walls and stones, bringing up even more dust in the air and obscuring the visibility even more.

The black titan was following them at steady pace, as if the explosions and debris were unable to even graze him. It probably couldn’t. The black armor was definitely more than just a costume to fill his enemies with fear. Then Maul noticed that the child was still holding onto the holocron.

Sneaky boy, he thought, suddenly hoping that the Jedi would reach their ship and escape before they were caught. While their hands were not his, Maul still preferred them to have the secrets stored by the ancient Sith than his former Master.

One of the Inquisitors, the one that kept everything important attached during the fight, raised, not quite dead yet. He waited for the right time to attack and it had come to him like an obedient dog. A blast from a ship hit so close to the Jedi that the pure force of the hit spilled them apart around the ruins. The kid hit the metal surface of their ship and slided down, dumbfounded by the impact. Tano had much less luck; she was the last one in the row and the explosion cut her from rest of the group. And let someone else to catch up to her. Two more lightsaber buzzed, shortly followed by thundering crash of blade meeting blade.

"Run!" She shouted. "I'll deal with him!"

"But Ahsoka...!" The boy – Ezra, his name was Ezra, through it was hard to not think of him as a child, trustful and filled with raw potential - protested, slowly getting up on still shaky legs.

"Run!" she repeated, her eyes not leaving the monster in front of her even for the shortest moment.

The child, compelled by the need to help, did not listen. He moved forward, lightsaber already in hand.

Without moving an inch, Maul observed. The Force was whispering around him, its voice gaining more and more power with every passing second. The air appeared to be swirling and bending, as if it was unable to withstand the tension of it, making the reality seem cracked and wrong.   
The last one of the Jedi said something, but it was too far away and the surrounding was too noisy for Maul to catch the words. Not that he really needed to hear them to know the emotions behind them. The Force was now buzzing restlessly in his ears, demanding attention, while the seconds stolen from the future spilled in front of his eyes.   
The Jedi was going to raise his hand and use the Force to push the child into the entrance of the ship. It will cost him dearly; the Inquisitor will use the chance and slash the Jedi across the face. Maul waited for the vision to replay before his eyes, the Force swirling furiously right beside him.

It did.

The reality returned on its right track, announced by a scream filled with pain, while the fury of the Force lessened, as if it was a sea tide, coming and going in waves. The moment of silence was only a promise of returning even stronger, even darker and blindingly powerful.

"Kanan!" The kid cried, crawling on all four through the ramp.

For some reason, as if looking for a rescue from heavens, he looked up. All he found was Maul. Their eyes met for a short moment – and the fact that the boy actually managed to spot him was a surprise in the first place; he was an assassin, trained specifically to be able come and go unnoticed, a hunter who preyed on Jedi. Yet there it was. Ezra's gaze was begging or mercy, filled with tears and despair. Maul's own eyes were indifferent. He learned long, long time ago that there was no such thing as mercy.

His legs moved for a whole different reason, mechanical parts and the Force working hand in hand to push him forward, a tidal wave beginning an onslaught on land. It was almost like flying, but not. Maul landed heavily and rolled over, so his legs would take most of the impact while non-mechanical parts could be spared.  
He dashed forward, before his reappearance on the battlefield would be noticed. He still had the upper position, running across what once could be a wall or a fallen column over the position where the Inquisitor was about to turn the Jedi into a shish-kebab.   
Maul jumped again, high up, so the gravity would enhance the power that already was there. Then he landed.

The flesh and bone were like a wet paper against the weight of the mandalorian durasteel. It all broke, splashing blood and shrapnel of bones around, pushing a miserable, gurgling noise out of the Inquisitors throat. The Jedi gasped, not quite sure what was going on, but definitely feeling it in the Force. The upper side of his face, or just these parts Maul was able to see through the fingers desperately covering the wound in search of some primitive form of comfort, was a mess, scorched and angry red, burned all the way through the skin to living flesh.

"You Jedi are taught to shield from blasters blindfolded, am I right?" Maul asked, his eyes shooting left and right. There still was a fair distance between them and the ship and there was no turning back now; his own ship was out of reach, while the Sith was far, far too close to his liking.

"Y-you?" the Jedi asked in a strangled voice. Then he swallowed and nodded.

"Good. Please, do kindly not chop my head off while you’re at it." There was no time to wait for an answer, so Maul did not wait for it. Instead he grabbed the Jedi and pulled the Force inwards instead of letting it spill around him like the usual. It burned and protested, trying to find a way out of this sudden imprisonment in living cells and an outlet Maul had provided; his body was a steam machine from a backward, primitive world, each movement fuelled and surrounded by furious hisses, filling air with scorching hot vapors. It was not an easy task and not only because Maul was unused to hauling a body – especially a still alive one - with him or because of the height difference between him and the Jedi. It feels way too hot against his back, the unfamiliar fabric was rubbing mercilessly against his bare skin and his side horn somehow got entangled with these ridiculously long hair of the man, no longer in neat ponytail but floating around freely, ticking and being as uncomfortable as possible.   
If anything, the Jedi knew what to do in this situation much better than Maul did. He somehow managed to wrap his legs around Maul high enough for it to not get in the way of movement of the mechanical legs. Maul could hear the steady buzz of the lightsaber on his right, catch the flashes of light with the corner of his eye. His instincts were protesting, because there was a lightsaber right next to him and he had no idiotic amount of trust to put in anyone in the first place. He forced himself to stop paying attention to the Jedi, to the blasterfire cutting through air with deadly flashes of red, to a buzz of lightsaber of wrong color activated too close. Instead, there was Force and he used it to push himself of the ground and then to grab onto the biggest stone in front of him and pull. The piece of land appeared to be way to big to move it even with a crazy amount of Force, but moving himself towards it instead was easy.

"Nice trick," the Jedi muttered into his ear.

"Concentrate on what you’re supposed to be doing," Maul growled.

Just as the Jedi made a noise in response, Maul caught something else. There was a thud he instantly recognized as a body smashing into a hard surface.

"Ahsoka!" Ezra cried, clearly terrified by what was going on.

Then Maul felt a pull. A Force, much, much more powerful than the one he was capable of summoning, was dragging him backwards, wrapped around one of his leg with humongous strength. If his legs were still flesh and blood, he would be probably howling in agony. For him there was just a tug, a sensation getting caught by something and not being able to shrug it off. Having nothing left to loose – the cold reality of the situation was hard not to recognize - Maul looked back

. The Grey Jedi was still alive, just on her knees and shaking her head, a lightsaber off, but lying on the ground still in her reach. There were cracks in the stone wall of the temple behind her he did not remember, so they were the cause of her dizzy – concussion? Broken skull? – spell. She just needed a little time to put herself back together... which she did not have. Or rather they didn’t have. Darth Vader was standing, tall and terrifying, mercilessly dragging them. The red lightsaber was already waiting, buzzing restlessly, hungry for more blood. Maul looked back at the starship and shifted his position, hoping that Jedi would be able to hold on without his help. He was not going to die like a trapped rat, not to this sword.

"What are you...?" The Jedi probably felt the slight shift in the Force, or maybe the handle of the lightsaber touched his body when it moved towards Mauls hand. Maul smiled.

Then activated the saber and cut.

 

xxx

 

They more fell than jumped into the spaceship, crashing gracelessly into metal wall. He tried to use the wounded man to shield himself from the impact but at this point Maul and whatever-his-name-was were just a chaotic knot of limbs. There was only the hope that the other guy hit it harder. Maul swallowed a curse, trying to get off the floor. What was left of his spine was definitely going to kill him, but that was a thing to worry about when they are not in the same space system that Darth Vader was. The kid was right next to him – them, the Jedi was still there, breathing heavily, smelling like sweat, fear and burned meat - making incoherent noises, unable to even decide on his priorities. There was no need to use the Force to poke at his mind, everything was already visible on his face and in the Force, whirling restlessly, reacting to the terror and the chaotic mess of every other feeling, half of which Maul couldn’t even name.

"Chopper!" The Jedi barked, clumsily using Mauls body to push himself up, hands grabbing way harder than in was needed, fingers moving around looking for the best support, fingernails biting into skin.

"Take us out of here!"

"But Ahsoka!" Ezra protested.

"Chopper, now!" The ship buzzed with power as the engine came to life. The trapdoor was already closing, deaf to the protests of the young boy.

"Why?" he finally asked.

"Ezra..." the Jedi started, facing any other direction than where his padawan stood.

"It's what she wants."

"I don't think anyone wants to die!"

"Tano's smart. Without the distraction she's going to find away to get away intact," Maul stated coldly, prying himself away from the blind man’s hands.

"You... you really think so?" Ezra asked. Then he, finally, returned to the reality. He was becoming more and more pale with a faint shade of green creeping up his face, as his gaze was slowly lowering onto them.

"Your leg..."

"I do hope it had a chance to attack one last time," Maul snickered humorlessly. He liked that leg and the fact that he lost it, cutting the mechanical limb away as if he was a terrified animal biting off a chunk of itself just to get away from the superior predator wasn’t making the situation any better. At least the lack of any sort of visible pain definitely was confusing the kid, which was somewhat hilarious. The whole situation was. Here he was, once a powerful Sith, kneeling on the floor of some ship that was barely bigger than an escape shuttle, legless and wearing rags splattered with blood and chunks of medulla and whatever that meaningful drone left when it died under his knees. He probably will have to throw these away, Maul through. A shame, the pants were doing a good job of shielding his joints from dirt. On the other hand he was not estranged on a planet filled only with ruins, so maintenance would be much easier…

"Oh, so that's what you were doing with that lightsaber!" the Jedi gasped, turning his head towards Maul and fully demonstrating how much of a mess he was now. His hair were sticking out in random direction, the piece of string or whatever he used to keep it together long gone, face muscles twitching uncontrollably. Distasteful.

“Uh…your leg?”

"What, were you expecting me to chop you in half?" Maul asked, partially because it occurred to him just now that he had the chance.

"It definitely crossed my mind," he shamelessly nodded.

“So, were now sitting here, hoping it kicked him in the bucket, yes?” Maul hoped that the Jedi would stop talking before the urge to behead him will turn irresistible. The man, clearly unaware of the bloodlust boiling just a few inches away, managed to laugh. Then he made a precious pained noise.

"Kanan!" Ezra gasped.

"No, no, I'm alright!" the Jedi quickly waved his hand in general direction of the boy. The kid was bullshit-proof.

"Your eyes..." Ezra started, clearly not sure how to put in words whatever he wanted to communicate..

"It's alright."

Maul rolled his eyes. Jedi were ridiculous. What was even the point in hiding an injury? It's not like the child never saw a battle zone even before. Quite the opposite, considering all the facts Maul gathered.   
He quickly considered his options. He never fancied space-walks, so keeping on the good side of whatever friends those two Jedi had would be a recommended course of action. Their gratitude could be even of some use to him; Maul needed allies and desperately so. Especially now, since he was officially back among the living in a galaxy where pretty much everyone wanted him dead.

Maul reached out and grabbed the Jedi by the chin, not so very gently pulling him closer.

"The front is quite well done," he stated, before the man tried to punch him in the face.

"But I doubt the heat had enough time to destroy the nerves." Behind him, Ezra swallowed loudly.

"C-can you...?" he asked quietly, his voice all tense and hoarse, a bit higher than even before. “Can you help him?”

"Well, I can't save his eyes," Maul stated. "It's not like a band-aid will be enough to deal with a light-saber damage."

"But you just said...!"

"I've said that the nerves should be fine. For now," Maul grimaced. "And it's not like you can stop at the nearest medical center and buy a neat replacement."

The Jedi nodded, probably expecting an answer like that.

"What are you planning?" he asked.

"Depending on what we can scrap around here... unless you want to try if you do a nice second coming of Rahm Kota?"

"...scrap?" Ezra blinked.

A moment later Chopper repeated the questions and then asked a few more, his voice coming from the small speakers in the walls and even all the comm devices he was able to find.

"I'm good with improvising and me being alive is a good enough proof of my abilities," Maul explained, while his mind was trying to put together some sort of a plan. There was a certain – and quite short – time limit to do something with the nerves, attach them to something that would work like the organic eyes did, something that would keep them alive and working, before they will become completely useless.   
There were cybernetic eyes models requiring chip installment in the brain, however Maul didn’t want to deal with that. Getting one now was bordering with a miracle. Besides, he didn’t feel like he was even close to being capable to messing with a brain of different species and keep in working order. So the nerves needed to stay in decent shape if he wanted to have an ally actually able to do something besides sitting there and being frustrating.

There was some more binar coming through the comm.

"No, I don't think the classic optical system of a droid would do... oh, you have a synthetic one? Used? No, those scrapped of non-metallic droids should be just fine."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Jarrus groaned. "Who told you that I would let a Sith anywhere near my face with a knife?"

"Well, you've already did that once," Maul grinned. The Jedi grit his teeth, making a small growling noise. He was facing a choice, through there wasn't much to choose from. He could either refuse and face the future mess of an infection or trust or a person the Jedi deemed to be evil incarnated. They both knew what was the logical conclusion, so Maul waited for the Jedi to make up his mind, while he simply enjoyed the irony of the entire situation. There was another noise coming from the Jedi, this time a shallow inhale, like he was a Mon Calamari trying to breathe on the desert.

"Ezra, go to the cockpit," the Jedi ordered, clearly losing a fight of trying to sound fine.

"If we end up in yet another situation I want to at least have someone at the cannon."

"But...!"

"Ezra. Go." Maybe it was how stern the Jedi sounded or maybe it was something entirely else, something Maul couldn't put his finger on, but Ezra actually listened. Slowly, very slowly he got up and left them alone.

"This is going to hurt, isn't it?" The Jedi asked licking his lips, muscles all tense, the fear clearly radiating from the man. It was a miserable sight. No wonder he wanted his dear student to be away, to not see him weak like this.

"You are procrastinating," Maul pointed out. He wasn't the only one, to tell the truth. Maul was taking his sweet time going through the stuff a kleptomaniac droid managed to gather. The Jedi chuckled.

"Wouldn't you?"

"I didn't." Maul lost a lot of years after his first fight with Kenobi.  
His memory of that time was all blurred and distorted, but the desperate need to survive was a thing he actually did remember. He did then what he felt that needed to be done, vision filled with dark spots, floating in the sea of green mist. There was a mind-blowing pain and then he could move again.   
How he actually managed to attach a whole lot of metal to his own wounded body and not die in the process was a mystery for a long time and he started connecting the dots only after he saw Mother Talzin using the Force in a way he never imagined to be possible and then existing and acting from beyond her grave, a wrath filled with anger, will and Lifeforce.

"What are you going to do?" The Jedi asked.

"You really want to know?" Maul smiled. He was enjoying the situation way too much.

"This is probably a bad idea, but humor me, please."

Making a small, humming noise, Maul obliged. "Firstly, I'm going to clean the wound and clear all the dead tissue..."

"Now I know this was a bad idea!" The Jedi flinched away from him rapidly. The back of his head hit the durasteel wall behind him with a thud.

"I haven't even started," Maul stated. "Why are you running away?"

"This is a natural human reaction!" The Jedi protested.

"This," Maul corrected him. "Was a sign of weakness."

"Now you're talking crazy."

He decided to not answer. The Jedi was desperately trying to act like he wasn't weak and Maul was about to prove him wrong anyway. He didn't need words to do so.

 

xxx

 

It was all wrong, wrong, wrong and it wasn't going to be any better. At all. Ezra tried to concentrate on coming back home, to Hera and Sabine, and Zeb, home where there was peace and safety, but it was like he was lying to himself. And badly. Returning home wouldn't change the fact that Ahsoka was no longer with them. Ahsoka, the person who put the rebellion together, Ahsoka who knew about the force much, much more than Ezra even hoped to learn, Ahsoka who was bringing people h o p e . No more of that. The hope was lost because of one stupid vision, because of his own stupid questions, because he was searching power and the person he asked pointed at Malachor.

"Stupid!" Ezra groaned. Fingernails were biting into the inner side of his palms, however the pain was actually welcome. It was much easier to deal with than that other kind of pain, burning deep inside him.

"Listen to a vision," he choked out, swallowing hard. He was not going to cry, he was not. He had no right.

"Stupid!" They never checked if it was a trap, they trusted Master Yoda. Trusted him. Only now Ezra realized that there was no way of proving that it really was the old Jedi Master and not some impostor. Really dumb, especially considering the fact that they bumped into the Inquisitors and the man black armor, while still inside. Stupid. It was so obviously a trap, and yet they’ve walked right into it.

"You're quite angry."

Ezra jumped, completely surprised. Then he blushed, because seriously, this was just plain embarrassing. Maul was barely moving and not only because he was missing one of his legs. While the small size of the ship was making movement easier for him, there was still something off in the way he was holding himself. Now he was standing a few steps behind Ezra, leaning on the doorway, the symmetry of his face broken with a small smirk and a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, sorry. Have you felt that?"

Maul merely rolled his eyes. "I don't need to feel it to see it. You're quite easy to read."

"No, I'm not!" Ezra protested automatically. The answer was only a chuckle. Maul reached out and grabbed the back of the co-pilot seat then slowly shifted himself forward. Ezra tried to not stare too much. He looked like he was in pain. Ezra highly doubted that he wanted to be pitied.

"I think I have to thank you," Ezra said, when the man sat down and carefully leaned against the seatbacks.

"Thank me?" Maul looked at him. His eyes were as yellow as any other Sith. Oddly enough, they didn't look as disturbing or unnatural than on anyone else.

"You helped Kanan," Ezra explained. "You... didn't have to. So, thank you." He honestly didn't expect Maul to jump right in there and help, not to mention to carry the wounded Jedi. And then... Ezra couldn't stop himself from looking at the leg. Or what of the leg was not there. The cut was a few inches under the knee and Maul spend quite some time unscrewing sharp metallic edges and doing... well, maintenance. For the lack of better word.

"I could've just leave you to die," Maul replied. "But what of it?"

"Sorry?" Ezra blinked, not understanding.

"There was nothing for me to gain," he explained. "Quite the opposite. The Inquisitors saw me alive and while they were just brainless drones, nonetheless they were well-trained drones."

"You think they informed... whoever send them after you?"

"I'm sure they did, yes." Maul took a deep breath and then exhaled, slowly, with half-closed eyes he stared at the hyperspace shimmer in front of them.

"I'm sorry we let them to you," Ezra muttered. Maybe if they didn't show up on Malachor, none would know that Maul was still alive. Then again, he said he was stuck there, so-

"Well, no matter now, the chase is on," Maul said with a smirk. "Since I was a dead man for the Galaxy for quite some time, I have close to allies, nor resources to aid me, while there's a whole Empire to fight."

"You still want to fight?" Ezra stared at him with eyes wide open. "The whole Empire?"

"It's not like I wasn't doing that before," Maul chuckled.

"Vader," Ezra gasped. "Have you fought him before? What is he, anyway?"

The smile disappeared instantly.

"Something I was supposed to be," Maul said in a soft, soft voice that cut like shards of glass. "No matter now," he said again. "There's no meaning in looking at what could've been when there's reality to deal with."

"Reality sucks," Ezra pouted. It probably was childish, but at the moment he didn't feel like an adult. He was just a brat lost somewhere in the galaxy.

"Yet it is the only thing available anyway."

Ezra decided he had no answer to that, so he just kept silent. Maul seemed to be okay with that. Once again, Ezra found it hard to not glance at the man every now and again. It was quite... weird. He could clearly hear him breathing, he could see him sitting right next to him. Heck, if Ezra concentrated really hard, he could feel the warmth of his body - whatever species Maul was, his body temperature was midly higher than one that belonged to a human. Yet in the Force, it appeared as if he wasn't there at all. It was very disconnecting. Was it the meditation? How were the Sith meditating anyway? They were supposed to be being of anger and fear and hatred and Ezra had trouble finding a way how to use feeling like that to center himself. Maul suddenly opened one eye. Ezra jumped in his seat and quickly looked away.

"S-sorry! I didn't mean to stare!"

"What are you curious about?"

Ezra quickly glance at the man, noticing the invitation, then looked away once again. He was curious about many, many thing and Maul was all too eager to share. However it would be like tossing Kanan away because he was now broken and Ezra hated to even think about hurting the man even more.

"Don't worry about your master," Maul said, as if reading in his mind. Was it really so easy to tell what Ezra was thinking about? Up until now he was pretty damn proud of his poker face. "Your droid has a healthy dose of paranoia. He decided that letting the Jedi hear everything would be a good idea. If he dislike my words, he's free to protest at any moment."

"Will you listen to him?" Ezra asked carefully. To tell the truth, it almost sounded like he approved or at least agreed to being spied on like that.   
Maul just hummed. There was no answer to get, so Ezra decided it wouldn't hurt to just poke at things a little bit.

"How can I not feel you? In the force, I mean. It's like you're not even there."

"The Dark Side is said to be much more elusive," Maul said.

"That... explains nothing."

**Author's Note:**

> So, hello there and thank you for reading (or simply scrolling back down here, people do that too).  
> Special thanks to sunsetofdoom for poking at this thing (also, go read her, she's an awesome writer and deserves the attention).  
> I'm obviously not a native speaker, so feel free to review and point out where I screwed up - It will be a great help, I want to improve!


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